Love, Sweet Love
by Lord Darling
Summary: Eames's kisses are the sweetest thing.


_Love, Sweet Love_

_**(This was meant to be part of a long multipairing thing I was doing with the topic of **_**sweets**_** as a recurring theme, but alas, other stuff ate into my time. It stands fine just as an A/E I hope :) **_

**I don't own Inception. Feedback loved.**

Perfect night, each star in the midnight sky flashing like crystal above him, cool as the damp grass. They feel kind, the stars, and he can think things like that when he's drunk on wine and whiskey. It's practically required.

"Cold?"

Turning to Eames, who's peering at him through the darkness with bleary good cheer, he shakes his head, shivering a little. Whose idea had it even been to break into a park at midnight, anyway? These ideas always seem infallible after a bar crawl, even though neither of them are young men anymore.

"Psshh, you little liar," snorts Eames. "Here..."

Eames proceeds to clumsily struggle onto his knees on the grass next to him (because if he's drunk then Eames is _smashed_) one big hand clenching on Arthur's shoulder for balance. Arthur wonders at first what he's up to when he starts unbuttoning his heavy overcoat - really, it's Eames so anything is possible - but when Eames struggles gracelessly free from it, he flicks the coat like a matador would and billows it out over Arthur's body. It settles over him, enfolding Arthur in cologne-scented warm thick wool. Eames nods in satisfaction. Fusses with the coat, tucking it in close round Arthur's chest.

Then, leaning down, he attempts to kiss Arthur on the forehead, but his aim is off and Arthur ends up receiving a wet eyelid-kiss instead.

"Better, my darling?" murmurs Eames very, very softly, stroking a finger down Arthur's face almost in wonder.

Love swells in Arthur's chest.

His throat tightens a little, eyes stinging at the corners. There is a reason he adores this man, after all. Drink just makes it harder to reign himself in.

"You -

_'You sentimental old fool', _he plans to joke, a playful dig at Eames's chivalrous instincts, but he finds he can't say it, not in a moment like this.

A dreamy, moonlit smile drifts onto Eames's face, his eyes creasing up at the corners. His head tilts in question: the vulnerability of his exposed throat, his thick sweeping eyelashes transforms his face into something young and naked. It's so beautiful it seems unreal, like a spell of the night. Eames's eyes shine.

"I- I love you," chokes Arthur at last, staring up at him helplessly. Stammering like he's never even _said _the words before, let alone a hundred times. "I love you, Eames. Love you so damn _much_."

The smile fades from Eames's face, a solemn, intense expression replacing it, his jaw hardening perceptibly. What has Arthur done wrong? A beat of time passes, and only then he realises - Eames is actually trying to keep himself together.

"I sometimes think..." begins Eames, the husky catch in his voice betraying his deliberate tone, "in my whimsical moments that perhaps I stole you away from whatever future-soulmate Fate had planned for you. Because I don't deserve you. Or to...feel this way. Silly of me, I suppose."

Shrugging bashfully, he runs a hand over his face as though to hide it, looking briefly away. "But then of course I feel terribly proud, and congratulate myself on a theft well-done."

Arthur smiles, shakes his head in sad wonderment that Eames can still have these attacks of doubt after all these years spent together.

"I guess it'd ruin your professional reputation if I told you that you won me fair and square, right?" he teases, "With no props or disguises or tricks of misdirection?"

"Oh, Christ yes, my name would be _mud_. I'd be cast out from the Eden of dreamshare and would be forced to become a lecturer at an adult education centre. And I'd be banned from ever entering Cuba. On pain of death." Eames smirks at him now, but fondly, all the same.

"I suppose I can keep a secret...even if it's a secret as huge as the fact you have a fundamentally good heart."

Like Eames, he's managing complete sentences, but his voice is slurring and softening around the edges. They should be getting home before they fall asleep right where they lie, which wouldn't be a good idea.

But first, as he cannot resist-

"Eames..." he murmurs it, searching for Eames's eyes in the black as he holds out his arms. "Eames, kiss me."

He's obliged. With a sigh, Eames sinks slowly against him, indulgently allowing himself to be gathered up in Arthur's embrace, for his head to be tugged down against Arthur's own. Their lips catch like magnets, hold. The eager heat of Eames's tongue teases the seam of his lips, pleading entry, a call he's too weak to withstand, and he opens.

Eames licks into his mouth like a warmed knife through butter, seeking out his tongue with single-minded purpose, the pressure of his lips slow, even. Arthur kisses back hungrily, so hungrily, even though he can match this dreamy pace that Eames is setting with slow kisses of his own, no less needful for all their gentleness. Sliding around him, an arm, guiding his head so that his neck is pillowed by Eames's forearm, protectively intimate, line of heat consuming his side and hip from the weight of Eames's body. He moans, pulls at the back of Eames's head in heady desperation, gasps into his mouth because once they get going like this he can never, ever help himself.

Already heat is loosening his limbs, drifting through every vein.

They're kissing like they're swapping souls.

"W-wait, sorry, um-" then like a cold shower Eames pulls away from him, ignoring his protesting whine.

"But..." he tries, watching foggily as his husband sits back on his haunches and starts digging in his pockets for something.

"...you'll like it, just wait sweetheart..." comes the distracted mutter as Eames frisks himself.

Then, Eames brandishes some small packet in the air with a triumphant, "Aha!"

It's too big and rectangular to be a wrapped condom, so he's all outta ideas.

As he has many, many times before in their relationship, Arthur finds himself asking, "What are you up to now?" not really expecting an answer.

"It's a nice night for fireworks." Eames tells him rather nonsensically, ripping the packet open and tipping the mystery stuff onto his palm. He tosses it back like a dose of aspirin.

Well, whatever, because now Eames is returning, snuggling his warm bulk against him. Greedy, Arthur embraces him anew, finding his ear to huskily instruct, "Now kiss me. Properly, this time."

When their mouths meet again, it's - there's something gritty-sharp in Eames's mouth, all these bits, what the hell -

Against his tongue, Arthur feels a sudden *_pop_*.

More.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

His husband's tongue is fizzing, crackling in his mouth and, fuck, it's _popping candy_, that's all it can possibly be. This _particular_ chemical reaction Arthur's known since he was just a child, and as childhood memory merges with drunkenness and Eames's _damn inventiveness _he finds he's giggling into Eames's mouth, clinging and laughing and laughing like a loon.

Eames kisses him, and the fizzing sweetness bursts on their tongues like a hail of bullets.

Their mouths mesh, explode, refire under a clear night sky.

_Fireworks_.


End file.
